Do glowing house plants take gene tinkering too far?

IF THE idea of reading by the light of a plant takes your fancy, you're in good company. The Glowing Plant project raised $484,013 on crowdfunding website Kickstarter last week.

The money will be used to add synthetic DNA to thale cress so that it glows. But opponents of synthetic biology are outraged because those who pledged over $40 to the project will receive a pack of seeds, allowing them to grow their own plants. The worry is that the synthetic DNA will proliferate as the engineered plants cross with wild plants.

Co-founder Antony Evans says he is confident that his seeds will not need federal approval. Allison Snow of Ohio State University in Columbus says that the bioluminescence genes are unlikely to pose significant risks. But she notes that thale cress is distributed widely across temperate zones, so some gene flow into wild plants is inevitable.

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